


Dead Fire

by HardingHightown



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/M, cipher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 13:57:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14695623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HardingHightown/pseuds/HardingHightown
Summary: Reading minds is not the same as understanding them.





	Dead Fire

She brushes her hair one hundred times every night, just as The Mistress showed her to fifteen years ago. She keeps her hair long, past her waist, though she’s not sure why. Every day it is swept up into a ribbon, long thin lengths weighing heavily on her. But it is now it is done. It is how it is done. The first stroke is always the hardest, tangling in the lengths, but by the hundredth everything sweeps by. It’s time for her, time in a world that gives her nothing.

Her mind wanders into her memories after the twenty-fifth stroke. She feels The Mistresses hand on her hand, guiding the brush, braiding in pure gold thread into her hair, telling her how pretty she is, testing her Vailian words for the party. “You will be so wonderful tonight ami,” she coos, brushing down her dress. “The best attraction in the city.”

The Mistress kisses the tip of each of her ears and giggles softly as they twitch. She knows what is expected of her. Read their minds, but softly. Go for the memories that burn bright white, the happiest parts. Remind them of their favourite nights at the Opera, of the day their son was born, but be mindful of the deeper purples that seep in, beware of the truths people keep further down. Make tricks out of truths. Make them gasp with delight and applaud what they already knew.

She can feel Serafen in the corner of this memory, his smile lopsided as he watches her pick at her harp. “Your life were sweet, Cap. What made you leave this cushy set up?”

“It wasn’t mine,” she says plainly, and she means it. The Mistress dresses her in fine green velvet, in house colours, that clash with her aquamarine skin. She will be passed around the party, reading minds and sitting on laps, then she will be taken to bed. In the morning she will crawl back into The Mistresses room, unless The Master is home from his travels in the far lands, in which case she will sleep in a cot by the hearth until she comes and scoops her up, cradling her as she carries her back to bed. Under the cot she saves every copper that the men and women at the parties slip her. It will take her eleven years to settle the debt she inherited from her father.

She comes out of the memory to feel him stirring next to her, his strong arms pulling her tightly against him. His fur smells of her, the room is heavy with their breath. The sea rocks them gently, as if Ondra herself sees this moment and cradles them both.

“You stink.”

Serafens eyes open, glistening with mirth as she slaps him playfully. She kisses him, a long, lingering kiss, and part of her hopes she can stay in this moment forever, held by strong arms, all sweat and stink and deep kisses, the taste of alcohol and tobacco on his tongue, the slight dig of claws in her flesh. Yet even as she thinks it, her mind wanders despite herself, wanders to that first night in the Dyrwood, to Calisca, to her asking what she wanted and the words fill her mind and echoes before she can stop it.

“I hope to meet someone and fall in love.”

As soon as the thought slips in, pure energy and hope, it’s tainted by the deep presence of Serafen, his body tensing next to her, the vision of him in the memory grinding his teeth as his ears fall.

“Meroia,” he sighs, the slightest rasp of anger at the sides, “I told you-”

“I know.”

And she does. He’s told her, he always told her, he told her before he even kissed her, he told her in the way he bowed when they first met, the way he winked at her when he went off with a doxy in the tavern, he told her in a thousands stolen glances and yet her heart sings in tune with his when their minds meet

“But… couldn’t you?”

She hopes he will jump in, interrupt, realise in that moment how their colours mix in that third place, how her lips feel on him, how his fur compliments her skin, how it’s special, how it won’t happen again, how this is their only chance, their one chance-

“Sure I could,” he says heavily, severing both their bodies and their minds as he sits up and steps off the bed, “but I don’t want to.”

She can feel herself starting to cry despite herself, her ears falling as he stands and starts to dress. “I can be better,” she whispers, and the silence it’s greeted with is deafening.

“See?” he says finally, pulling his shirt over his shoulders. “It’s fun, til it ain’t.”

“I can be-”

“You don’t have to be anything!”

There’s an edge to his voice, one that once she might have thought was anger but now knows to be frustration. He’s not good at this. She knows he’s not good at this, but she can help him, she can make it better. She can always make it better.

He finishes getting dressed, smoothing the braids of his beard last before finally looking back at her. His voice is soft, but his mind is blocked from her.

“We share a past, understanding. Savvy? We share the bits of our minds we can sneak into. But your life ain’t fuck all like my life. A pirate is far from a cushy pet, as right you’d know it if you dared look close. You’ve been free seven years, Merry. What about everything that’s made you in that time? We can’t look to the past forever.”

“But what we have,” she says quietly, suddenly feeling more naked that she ever had. “It’s special, isn’t it? Where else would you find somebody like me?”

She’s sure that got him, for just a second, but he shakes his head and goes for the door.

“That’s the problem, Cap. It ain’t about one mind. Could be anybody. Ain’t enough. That’s the truth of it.”

When he leaves, she knows he won’t share her bed again.

***

Hours later she emerges, hair scraped back in a mess, eyes puffy, drained to all hell. They’ve docked for supplies, and Serafen has had the common sense to make himself scarce. Probably at the tavern, she realises, the thought a knot in her stomach. She creeps onto the deck, finding a spot of sunlight, and breathes in the new air of this new town. She will renew. She will heel. The wheel turns. It turns, and it turns.

On the bridge further down she sees a familiar figure, sat cross-legged , back against the helm, pouring over a book almost half the size of him, his eyes squinting in the sun. He gnaws at his own fingers - the skin around the nails, not the nails, she’s realised - his long hair tossed over one side of his

“You’ll catch the sun, Aloth.”

He jumps slightly, tensing instinctively until he sees her face. When he realises it’s her he relaxes, shuffles aside, allowing her to sit close beside him. She sees now that he is set up; waterskin, cut fresh fruit and nuts. A feast for all.

She grabs a slice of fresh apple. He does not stop her.

“Why did you not go to shore with the others?”

“I was waiting for you.”

He says it without a thought, without meaning, but it hits her stomach like the pommel of a sword. He smiles at her, and she realises he is looking straight at her. He can’t hold anybody’s gaze.

She finds herself smiling back.

“They let’s stay here. Will you read aloud to me? I do love to hear you read.”

A blush settles on the tip of his ears, a blush that sends his mind and hers a soft, pulsing white.


End file.
